


all my atoms

by extasiswings



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: (mostly), Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon Compliant, Friends to Lovers, Insecurity, M/M, Mutual Pining, Season/Series 02, True Love is Touching Souls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27941462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: Every atom of me and every atom of you...we'll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pin trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams...and when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won't just be able to take one, they'll have to take two.There are three things every child learns about daemons:Don’t ask questions or talk about another person’s daemon—it’s rude.Don’t put too much distance between yourself and your daemon—it’ll hurt.Under no circumstances should you ever touch someone else’s daemon.Simple.  Straightforward.  Easy to remember, easier to follow.  That’s what Eddie thinks of the rules.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Past Eddie Diaz/Shannon Diaz, allusions to Evan "Buck" Buckley/Abby Clark
Comments: 22
Kudos: 325





	all my atoms

**Author's Note:**

> I was watching His Dark Materials and every time I am reminded of the entire concept of daemons (and my love of Will and Lyra), I go completely feral so...have nearly 4k of me having Feelings about these boys + daemons.

There are three things every child learns about daemons:

Don’t ask questions or talk about another person’s daemon—it’s rude.  
Don’t put too much distance between yourself and your daemon—it’ll hurt.  
Under no circumstances should you ever touch someone else’s daemon.

Simple. Straightforward. Easy to remember, easier to follow. That’s what Eddie thinks of the rules. 

At least, until he’s ten years old and Itzel settles and suddenly everyone is _looking_ at him all the time. Then, he wishes they _would_ just ask, that they would talk where he could hear, because he knows it’s strange to settle so young, but no one ever gives him a chance to explain that he hasn’t been through any trauma, there was no earth-shattering upheaval in his life, that Itzel is just...Itzel. 

“You’re bigger than me,” he says the first night that Itzel shifts and tells him she doesn’t think she’s going to change again, the two of them stretched out on his bedroom floor, his hands running over her golden coat in wonder.

She flicks her tail and purrs, curling into him to nose at his neck. “You’ll grow,” she says. Like it’s nothing. And maybe it is.

“Why a mountain lion?” Eddie asks. “And why now?”

“I don’t know. It just felt right.”

And Eddie can’t really argue with that, so he doesn’t try and doesn’t ask again. Instead, he gets used to the staring, until he gets older and more of his classmates start to settle and people stop looking so much because they can pretend he’s normal. 

Eddie breaks the second rule after he enlists. Technically, the training is optional. There are other rules—laws and regulations—about whether you can be forced to stretch your bond to its limits because increasing the distance you can get from your daemon is an unpleasant and arduous process. But all Eddie can think about is the fact that he’s going to be a father soon, that he needs the army, can’t afford to risk getting kicked out of training.

So...he agrees. And it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done in his life. Agonizing in a way he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. But he survives.

He’s grateful for it later, when he’s home for good, with new scars and a mind clouded in shadows, when all Itzel wants to do is stay with Christopher and his Arixa, who spends much of her own time as a little cub. It’s not uncommon then for Eddie to wake up and find his daemon in his son’s room.

They don’t talk about it. Eddie doesn’t ask whether she spends so much time with Chris and Arixa because she feels guilty for everything that happened in Afghanistan, regardless of the fact that she isn’t responsible. It makes him feel better knowing she’s there, watching Christopher, even when he himself is trapped in his own head so much of the time.

He thinks it can only be a good thing. Which is why he’s thrown to realize not everyone feels the same.

“She thinks it’s unnatural,” Itzel says quietly one night when nightmares send Eddie out to the porch. “Shannon. She thinks it’s unnatural that I can be so far away from you.”

Eddie’s stomach twists as he looks up at the sky and runs a gentle hand down her back.

“She hasn’t said anything,” he replies.

“Tyspex told me. He thinks it’s wrong and uncomfortable and that if I had any decency I would at least pretend to be normal.” 

There’s an edge to her voice—Eddie knows that she and Shannon’s iguana daemon have never gotten close necessarily, but they’ve always at least been decent to one another. He winces.

“What did you say?”

Itzel huffs. “I hissed at him. And then I...may have said that he didn’t get to complain about us not being here for Chris and Arixa and also criticize me now that we’re home and doing exactly what he and Shannon wanted. I left before we could get into it more than that.”

Eddie blows out a breath and leans back on his elbows. He’s not mad—it’s hard to be mad at something that’s such a fundamental piece of yourself—but he doesn’t know what to do either. Since getting back, it’s felt like all he and Shannon do is fight, like there’s a wall up between them and as much as he tries he can’t seem to tear it down. He can’t do anything right, can’t move to California the way she wants, can’t stop waking up shaking in the middle of the night, can’t find the words to talk about why, nothing. And if even their daemons are fighting…

He swallows hard and closes his eyes, tamping down on a wave of guilt, regret, failure, shame, panic—Itzel nuzzles at his side before resting her head on his thigh. After everything he did thinking it was all the right thing, the only option—

“She’s going to leave. Isn’t she.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounds like it’s been scraped down with sandpaper. Itzel goes still and quiet for a long moment.

“Ty won’t let me touch him,” she says finally. “But...he hasn’t ever really tried much. I think maybe…”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe she was never going to stay,” she finishes.

Eddie bites his lip hard and neither of them say anything else for a long while. 

A week later, he wakes up to a note on the kitchen table and his wife gone. Six months after that, six months of no contact at all, she sends him divorce papers. She doesn’t ask for money or custody or contact—she doesn’t seem to want anything at all except a clean break, a fresh start, the ability to live her life as if he and Christopher never existed at all. So he gives it to her. And he never hears from her again.

The third rule...Eddie never plans on breaking that one. He can’t imagine ever wanting anyone to touch Itzel except maybe Chris, and he can’t see himself ever wanting to touch anyone else’s daemon. As he’s gotten older, he’s learned it’s not quite as straightforward when you learn it as a child, that for some people, it’s good, welcomed. But the thought of being that vulnerable with someone, allowing that level of intimacy, he can’t—no. He never plans on letting that happen.

Then again. He also never plans on Buck.

* * *

Evan Buckley sometimes wishes daemons didn’t exist at all. He loves Kidacia, he does, but by the time he’s eighteen and she’s still unsettled…

His parents drag him to doctors, specialists who poke and prod at both of them endlessly. Buck hates the stares they get when she shifts in public, unable to hold a form, hates the whispers, hates the feeling like there’s something wrong with him, with them. When she finally does settle as a golden retriever when he’s twenty-one, he’s desperately relieved, but the damage is done. He dislikes being conspicuous, dislikes drawing attention to Kida. He’s gotten used to avoiding serious relationships, to leaving before someone else can decide that he’s broken or deficient somehow. 

But then there’s Abby. Abby, who he gets to know over the phone. Abby, who can’t see him or Kida, who doesn’t know his past, and when he finally meets her in person it’s...easy. For the first time. 

“I like Zi,” Kida says at the end of that first night, curled up at the foot of Buck’s bed with her head on her paws. “He’s shy, but he’s nice. And Abby’s nice. They could be good for us.”

“Need I remind you, we agreed we’d just be friends?” Buck points out.

“Please, I give that a week tops.”

Buck tosses a pillow at her and she catches it in her teeth and keeps it for her own cushion. He glances over at his phone and chews on his lower lip.

“Think I should call her?”

Kida laughs. “Now? While you’re in bed? And half-naked?”

Buck grins and flushes. “Shut up. ...I’m gonna do it.”

“Of course you are.”

Months later, he kisses Abby goodbye at an airport and promises to wait for her. Her canary daemon hovers in front of Kida and nips gently at her ear before flying back to settle on Abby’s shoulder.

Buck doesn’t realize she isn’t coming back.

But Eddie Diaz is a surprise. Buck walks into the station months after Abby leaves and gets an eyeful of a cut, bare torso and thick dark hair. His gut flares unexpectedly with heat and he shoves it down before he can think too hard about it—at his side, Kida growls. Across the room, the big hulking cat at the other man’s side turns and flashes her teeth. 

“Who the hell is that?” Buck demands. 

“Eddie Diaz, new recruit,” Bobby says, clapping him on the shoulder. “Have fun.”

“Wow, Buck,” Chim teases. “Don’t tell me the two of you are going to end up fighting like cats and—”

“Don’t finish that sentence.”

By the end of the shift though—

“You could have my back any day,” Eddie says.

The back of Buck’s neck heats and he can’t help ducking his head and grinning shyly.

“Or, you know, you could have mine,” he replies. Eddie startles when his daemon brushes deliberately against Kida, and Buck freezes, the two of them staring for a moment before both clearing their throats and looking back up.

“Um...sorry,” Eddie says, rubbing at the back of his neck. 

“No, it’s—it’s fine. Really.”

Later, when Buck is back home in bed, Kida climbs in next to him and stretches out. She’s quiet, but it’s the kind of silence weighted with everything going unspoken. 

“It took you a week to get comfortable with Hen and Chim and Bobby’s daemons,” Buck says finally, burying his face in her fur.

“I know,” Kida replies.

“So?”

“Itzel is...different,” she admits.

“Different how?”

But she goes quiet again and refuses to say anything else. 

Buck stays awake for a long time.

* * *

Eddie waits a few weeks before bringing it up. And in the meantime, every shift Itzel and Kidacia are in and out of each other’s space, playing and cuddling and whispering together. It makes Eddie’s stomach swoop when he thinks too much about it, but he doesn’t think it’s a bad thing, just...different. Not something he’s experienced before.

Buck is something else. Warm and open and helpful without being asked—and goodness knows, Eddie has never found asking easy—Eddie really can’t blame Itzel for leaning into Kida because Eddie wants to do the same, to fall into Buck and soak up that light and positivity, let him chase away the shadows that linger in Eddie’s mind. He feels something shift the day that Buck arranges for Chris to come to the station, when Kida catches Arixa by the scruff of her neck before she can tumble through the opening where the fire pole sits, when they all spend hours together and he’s never experienced something so right.

“You’ve never been like this before,” Eddie says when he’s settled on the couch that night. “With someone else.”

Itzel stretches and lifts her head from his lap. “I didn’t hear a question.”

“Itz…” 

He scratches under her chin and her eyes close. 

“I’ve never wanted to before,” she replies finally. “With Ty a little, but he never really...and with Ari, but she’s family, it’s different. I like Kida. A lot. And everyone else too, but especially Kida. She feels...safe. Don’t tell me you don’t feel that way about Buck.”

Eddie’s head falls back against the couch as he sighs. “We just got settled here. Things are good, Christopher is happy, I can’t—I don’t want to mess that up by jumping into anything that I shouldn’t. And I’m not—Buck has a girlfriend—”

“And Kida doesn’t think Abby is ever coming back even if Buck refuses to admit it yet,” Itzel interrupts. 

That makes Eddie’s stomach twist, because he’s heard the same from Hen and Chimney and that’s—Buck deserves better than someone who would leave without even breaking up with him properly. Buck deserves better than someone who would leave at all. 

“Even if Buck did—I couldn’t,” he says. “Friendship, I can do. I don’t—I’m not good at anything else. Shannon certainly didn’t think so.”

A low hiss tells him what she thinks of that. She jumps down from the couch and starts to walk down the hall to Christopher’s room, pausing to look back at him.

“Just think about it,” she says. “Be his friend, but just...think about it.”

Eddie doesn’t reply, but he does think about it. For months, he thinks about it—when Buck brings Carla into his life, when Buck comes over and gets drunk and spends the night on his couch after finally ending things with Abby officially, when Chim gets hurt and Maddie is kidnapped and Buck is practically vibrating out of his skin in a hospital hallway—he thinks about it. It’s just that every time he thinks about actually _doing_ anything, he comes up with some reason not to. 

And then a bomb goes off and Eddie—

Eddie stops breathing. The smoke begins to clear and Itzel screams, darting forward to where Kida is lying in a heap unmoving after being thrown several feet from the truck. 

The truck that’s currently trapping Buck underneath it. 

Eddie’s mind is blank, his focus narrowing to the sight of Buck’s face twisted in agony, to the pull of his bond with Itzel, the panic and worry and love as she prowls in a circle as if daring anyone to come near Kida. He can’t think about anything until they’ve pulled Buck out, until he’s been loaded safely into an ambulance and Itzel has gotten Kida up and into it as well.

“Eddie,” Buck murmurs, his eyes heavy lidded and face still tight from pain. Eddie grabs his hand and squeezes gently.

“I’m right here,” he says. “It’s okay, Buck. You’re going to be okay.”

“My leg—Kida—”

“Kida’s fine,” Eddie assures. “And we’re going to take care of your leg. Just rest.”

“Don’t—” Buck coughs and his eyes slide fully shut. “Don’t leave.”

There’s pressure against his side as Itzel presses against him.

“I won’t. I won’t leave. I’m not going anywhere.”

It isn’t until Kida stretches up to put her paws on the stretcher that Eddie realizes Itzel hasn’t moved from the corner of the ambulance the entire time. As he watches, Buck’s daemon leans in and noses at their clasped hands, brushing against Eddie’s fingers. 

Eddie freezes, his eyes flashing first to Hen, who doesn’t appear to have noticed, and then to Buck. But Buck’s eyes are still closed, and his breathing has evened out in a way that tells Eddie he’s finally slipped into unconsciousness.

After a moment, Kida retreats back into the corner with Itzel, but not before licking the back of Eddie’s hand. If the first time he could have dismissed as an accident, the second he doesn’t know what to do with at all. But he doesn’t really get a chance to think about what it means because then they’re arriving at the hospital and Buck is being whisked off to surgery with Kida trailing behind.

He swallows hard as Buck disappears down the hall amidst a sea of white coats.

“You should call Carla,” Itzel says quietly at his side. 

“He’s going to be in surgery for hours,” Eddie replies absently, still staring down the hall.

“Sure. But...you promised you wouldn’t leave. You should be here when he wakes up.”

“If he wakes up.”

Itzel nips gently at his hand and twines around his legs. “He will. I know he will.”

Eddie wakes up in the morning, twisted uncomfortably in a chair next to Buck’s hospital bed. Itzel and Kida are curled up at the foot of the bed—Eddie’s hand is resting on Kida’s back. The instant he notices, he starts to flinch away, but Kida cocks her head and stares at him.

“It’s okay,” she says. “I want you to.”

“Buck—”

“Wouldn’t mind.”

Eddie wets his lips and glances up—Buck’s eyes are still closed, his breathing even, the heart monitor beeping steadily. He still pulls his hand back, but more slowly.

“Still,” he replies. “I’d rather hear that from him.”

Kida snorts. “You won’t. He’s an idiot. He thinks you’ll leave.”

Eddie shakes his head—that’s just—ridiculous. Buck is—how could Buck possibly think—

“I wouldn’t.”

“I know,” she says. “You should probably tell him that though.”

“I’ve been saying that for months,” Itzel chimes in, nuzzling at Kida’s jaw.

“ _Men_.”

Eddie looks up to Buck again. Still sleeping. 

“I’ll try,” he promises. 

Kida sighs. Itzel purrs.

And Eddie starts to think.

* * *

Buck hates physical therapy. Hates feeling weak, hates having to rely on everyone else for help, hates not being able to do anything for himself.

But, perhaps more than anything, he hates feeling like he’s never going to be able to be a firefighter again and that everyone else is just dancing around that fact. 

Kida has been quiet since the accident. Not like she’s hurt, but rather...secretive. Cuddling with Itzel or Arixa in corners, not teasing him quite so much. He agrees to move in with Eddie and Christopher for a few months so he isn’t stuck alone in a loft with stairs he can’t climb, and he expects her to have something to say considering that she’s been trying to get him to ask Eddie for more for months, but there’s been nothing.

At first, it was just attraction. Heat simmering under his skin when he stared at Eddie too long in the gym or brushed shoulders with him. Easy to push down and ignore.

But then he started spending more time with him. And with Christopher. Then he started feeling like part of the family. Then he started _wanting_ things. Wanting to not have to go home at night. Wanting to stay, to be kept, to be trusted.

To be loved. 

And those wants—those are dangerous. Because Buck knows Eddie wouldn’t—Abby didn’t want him, and he doesn’t see any reason why Eddie, who has Christopher and doesn’t date anyone because of that, would feel differently. So he’s stayed quiet because at least he can have Eddie’s friendship. At least he can be in their lives. 

But Eddie’s been odd since the accident as well. Sure, he asked Buck to move in, but Buck’s also felt...tension. He’ll feel Eddie watching him only for Eddie to look away. There have been a few instances in which Eddie has started to say something only to cut himself off and change the subject. 

“You don’t think we’re overstaying our welcome?” Buck asks Kida when he can’t sleep in the middle of the night. “Or that there’s something wrong that I’m not seeing?”

“Nope. Not at all. But I think if you’re worried, you should just talk to him.”

Buck makes a face and stares at the ceiling. Kida mutters something under her breath that Buck can’t catch.

“What?” He asks.

“Nothing,” she replies. “Nothing at all.”

Buck is about to push when Itzel pads into the room and Kida jumps down from the bed. 

“Itz, Buck wants to know if there’s something wrong with Eddie. What do you think—is there?”

Buck flushes. “Itz, you don’t have to—”

But Eddie’s daemon just laughs. Laughs and bumps her head against Kida’s, soft and affectionate.

“Eddie’s never been very good at asking for things he wants,” she says, her eyes sparkling. “But I promise there’s nothing _wrong_.”

“Buck’s not very good at asking for things he wants either,” Kida replies.

Itzel murmurs something that Buck can’t hear, and Kida laughs as well. 

“You don’t have anything to worry about, Buck,” she adds. “Trust me.”

It’s the strangest conversation Buck has ever had. But when Itzel leaves and Kida comes back to the bed, he lets it drop.

He does mean to talk to Eddie after that. He does. 

Except that the next day, Eddie leaves the room for a minute and Buck thinks he can make it to the kitchen on his own without his crutches and—

He makes it a few steps before he falls, twisting so he lands on his back and doesn’t hurt himself any further. He closes his eyes and when he reaches out blindly there’s fur under his fingers and a nose nudging at his cheek. 

It’s not until he hears a sharp inhale across the room that he opens his eyes.

Eddie’s looks wrecked, too many emotions flickering across his face too quickly for Buck to decipher them. He’s gripping the doorframe like he thinks his legs might support him and when Buck looks to the side, Itzel purrs and arches into his touch.

Buck swears and panics. He’s never touched—he knows that sometimes people do, but he’s only ever thought of it as a bad thing, dangerous, especially after learning more about Doug and Maddie—and he wouldn’t, he couldn’t ever— 

“Eddie,” he chokes out. “I’m so—”

“Don’t stop,” Itzel says, at the same time Eddie wets his lips and says—

“It’s only fair.”

“What?” He asks, frozen in place.

“I touched Eddie when you were in the ambulance. And in the hospital when you were still sleeping,” Kida says.

Buck’s mouth goes dry. “Why—why would you do that?”

“We almost died Buck. And I wanted—I just wanted.”

Buck swallows and exhales shakily.

“Eddie, I—”

“She didn’t do anything wrong, Buck,” Eddie says, finally pushing off the frame and crossing the room. “If she meant—if you really—”

“If I what?” Buck asks when Eddie kneels down next to him. 

Nerves flash across Eddie’s face, but then he straightens his shoulders in resolve.

“Please say this is okay,” he replies. And then he’s lifting Buck up to sitting, leaning in, and kissing him.

 _Oh_.

Buck makes a small wounded sound and fists his hands in the front of Eddie’s shirt to keep him close. He didn’t think—

“I don’t remember it,” he pants when the kiss breaks. Eddie presses his forehead to Buck’s and hums in question.

“You touching Kida,” Buck clarifies. “I don’t remember it.”

And then, before he can think better of it, before he can worry it’s the wrong thing, he adds—

“—you should do it again.”

They both list to the side, thrown off-balance when Kida slams into them excitedly. But the next moment, Eddie tentatively winds his fingers into her ruff and Buck—

Buck gasps and drops his head to Eddie’s shoulder. It feels like static electricity is flooding his veins, an overwhelming warm glow of safety and contentment and love. 

Love.

Fuck, he understands why Eddie had been gripping the door—he thinks if he hadn’t already been on the floor, he wouldn’t have been able to stand.

Itzel knocks into his shoulder and Buck reaches out and runs a hand over her and then he and Eddie are kissing again and it’s everything he ever imagined. 

“Just so we’re clear,” Buck says later, when both of them are tangled up together on the couch, Kida and Itzel mirroring them on the floor. “You...want this? Me?”

“If you want me,” Eddie replies. 

“You might get sick of me.”

Eddie shakes his head and kisses him again. “Never.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary quote are from the HDM series by Philip Pullman.


End file.
